A group of sixth graders huddle around a computer, pointing at the screen and nudging for turns at the keyboard. Across the room, a pair works on a mobile app that helps students in the same class share notes. Another team is building a video game, not too different from Angry Birds. Each week the class designs algorithms, debugs code, and “pair programs” for hours after school.

These are girls who code.

Today, Girls Who Code is celebrating the graduation of over 2,500 girls from our after-school clubs program. Each week throughout the academic year, the girls have tackled immersive, project-based lessons, learning everything from fundamentals to advanced applied concepts. They’re taught by volunteer instructors, and they finish the year with a final project that helps their community. Today girls hit social media to celebrate the year by sharing projects and photos from their Clubs with #GWCClubs.

Unfortunately, the excitement we see in our classrooms doesn’t yet match up with the numbers in today’s workplace. Currently, women make up only 20% of computing jobs. In 2012, only 18% of computer science (CS) graduates were women — a figure that has been cut in half since 1984, when women made up 37% of CS majors. In high school, 74% of girls express an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) but only 4% of girls end up choosing a major in STEM subjects when they graduate.

While there’s no single reason for this drop off, a recent report from NPR exposed the correlation between the rise of the personal computer and the decline of women in CS. Early computers were loaded with video games designed primarily for boys, so the idea that computers were more masculine quickly gained traction.

The lack of computer time at home led girls to feel unqualified for CS classes and ultimately discouraged.

As a former computer engineer, and the Director of the Girls Who Code Clubs Program, this theory resonates. Despite being at the top of math and science classes in high school, I was immediately intimidated by male colleagues in my first college CS course. Not only were they better prepared, they spent their free time on video games and after-school engineering teams, which were all centered on building cars or athletic robots. I finished the program — unwilling to be another girl who dropped out — but decided CS wasn’t for me, and ended up taking a job where I thought I would fit in better.

When childhood activities are gendered, whether it’s programming computers or playing house, the ripples have lasting effects. The “brogramming” nerd culture has evolved into the common perception of what it means to work in tech: you wear a hoodie, you drink a Red Bull, and you are a ‘dude.’ Given the acute growth of the STEM industry, women face a severe economic risk if they continue to be marginalized from the fastest growing and highest paying fields.

Targeted programs are needed to show women, especially at young ages, that coding isn’t a guy thing; it can be a creative, collaborative, and an incredibly female thing. Girls Who Code and similar initiatives are starting to break open the stale and inaccurate perceptions around coding and reshape what it means to be a computer programmer.

The tech industry and academia need to similarly embrace difference. The New York Times just released data from UC Berkeley proving that more women enroll in engineering classes if the content of the work is societally meaningful. This comes as no surprise to Girls Who Code staff. Almost every project created in Girls Who Code programs solves some kind of social problem. This includes an app now on the Apple store that challenges societal taboos around menstruation. Among thousands of trivial games on hand for vapid entertainment, Tampon Run provides a refreshing respite.

Ultimately, the best way to break an old narrative is to tell new stories.

In our Girls Who Code classrooms, coding is a girl thing. “I just like everything about it,” says Sasha Floru, a student at Rhode Island Middle School. “It’s really important to our future now, so I don’t see it as a not cool thing. I see it as an amazing thing.” These spaces create the foundation for girls to stand up against the feeling that being a programmer just isn’t for them, and instead shape what being a programmer means for us all.